Yankees: Gleyber Torres’ Clutch HR and RBI Single Give NYY Series Win Over Nats

Yankees stars Gleyber Torres and Luke Voit woke up the bats late against the Washington Nationals.

UPDATE: Gleyber Torres’ RBI single in the top of the eighth has the Yankees up 3-2!

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Through nearly seven full innings, Patrick Corbin was making a mockery of the Yankees lineup on Sunday.

Barely inching above 70 pitches thrown, Corbin brought his buzzsaw to the table, getting the Yanks to swing over the slider with great regularity.

In fact, entering the seventh, Gleyber Torres was the only Yankee who’d been on base against Corbin, smacking a single up the middle in his second AB. Still, though, the crafty lefty had retired 19 of 20 batters before Torres strode to the plate again in the seventh, and unloaded on a high fastball, much the same way Trea Turner had earlier against Jonathan Loaisiga.

Apparently, one homer was too much for Nationals manager Davey Martinez, who took early season pitch count limitations to heart, and yanked Corbin from the game as he approached 75, something that never would’ve occurred in a normal July.

Luke Voit thanked him.

Voit, mired in an impressive slump to open the season both offensively and defensively (and still battling the reputational ding he received from his slow recovery from a nasty hernia in 2019), silenced the doubters briefly with this powerful line drive over the left field wall.

And just like that, before the seventh-inning stretch, we were knotted back up again.

The calls for Mike Ford will have to wait…briefly.

Voit, robbed of an extra-base hit by a leaping Asdrubal Cabrera in his previous at-bat, certainly preferred this outcome on a Will Harris pitch. Harris seemed to be telegraphing his cutter during this sub-par outing which, in the future, I would try to avoid.

There’s still a ways to go here, and the Yankees now have to navigate Washington’s bullpen while keeping their own stable, following a ‘pen game and without Aroldis Chapman. Regardless, these were two clutch blasts at the perfect time.